


the breaths you take are enough

by ftera



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-20 08:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3643791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftera/pseuds/ftera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the time, it's easier to tell him in noises than it would ever be in words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the breaths you take are enough

**Author's Note:**

> [Day 1](http://crossroadscastiel.tumblr.com/post/111907506797/britin-30-day-challenge): “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sometimes, Justin talks just because he knows he can. It's not so much that he enjoys being particularly chatty, but more of the fact that he hates silence.

He paints with music playing softly in the background. When he cooks, he mumbles under his breath. (It took three months for Brian to realize he was very softly saying the lyrics to the song they danced to so long ago at prom. Once he figured it out, he backed off and never mentioned it after that. Justin never talks about that night— Brian doesn't want to bring it up.) During dinner, he talks about how his day went.

He fills the loft with sounds of life.

Over the course of three years, Brian had gotten used to it. He began to associate coming home with the sound of laughing and eating with talk of the diner or art.

And then, one day, it stops.

Justin leaves, and he takes the noises with him.

Brian tells himself it's nothing, that the additional sounds bothered him anyway, but he doesn't realize he's lying to himself (he's proud that he was able to figure this one out on his own without anyone pointing it out in his face) until one day he comes back from work in a sour mood and slams the door of the loft. He's expecting the sounds of pots and pans clanging together to remind him that he's not the only one with bad days, and berates himself for holding his breath when it doesn't come.

After that, he learns to communicate with sounds. The angry _clang_ of his coffee mug is met with an irritated _slap_ of the diner's menu hitting the table, regardless of the fact that he never opens it. The setting down of a plate is answered by the clearing of a throat. He learns to talk to Justin without talking to him and, for a while, it makes it easier.

And then it stops being easy.

Brian makes joke after joke after joke about the fiddler (he doesn't refer to him by name) and Justin _tsks_ at him. Justin accidentally tries to start a conversation and Brian hums tunelessly, a sharp reminder of what they don't have lingering in the air.

And then he comes back.

Old sounds become new again and more sounds join onto it. There's a deeper communication in the sound now— a test to see if he can make Justin scream louder than the night before is fueled by soft, disappointed _tuts_ when it's not loud enough, a promise of something more is made by the sound of the TV being turned on and is answered in faint hums. Justin's contentment is made with a low purr, and though Brian's satisfaction doesn't have a sound, the lazy, smug look on his face is emphatic.

They're not simple. Nothing about them ever has been. If Brian could speak it in works, he might be able to express Justin's worth to him out loud. But there's this— a gasp, a breath, a whisper.

In all the ways it shouldn't be, it's everything he needs.


End file.
